Why People Vote the Way They Do: Trying to Make Some Sense of it All-Part I

May 5, 2012

Ever wonder what makes somebody pull the lever to the right or to the left? Ever wish you could see the world through Andy Rooney eyes when he meanders about the highways of the mind as though on a quest for true understanding of one of life’s peculiar mysteries?

Ever wonder if the boys in the back room of the RNC and DNC care about the truth if each party has millions of dollars to fashion the very truth to their own liking? You know, to where whichever candidate each party runs for high office will be able to pull it off and win? So then they get their man and a bunch more they sponsored to fashion laws to benefit their large campaign contributors for high favors? Like in letting Halliburton and the like have exclusive no-bid contracts for the Iraq War meals for soldiers, roads to be built, infrastructure to be repaired, the usual? If enough money is thrown at a chosen candidate’s campaign war chest, wouldn’t it follow perhaps that those upper-crust contributors might get rewarded with a tax cut for the rich? Like when Bush sponsored and his lap-dog Congress passed the $2 Trillion tax cut for the rich? And Obama, years later, put his okay stamp on extending the Bush Tax Cut for the rich? The richest taxpayer Americans got a return of real tax dollars of over $92,000.00 per year! Must be nice. You got yours, didn’t you?

Ever wonder if the written history of the Democrats exists in an Orwellian world where we were always at war with Oceania? No, rather we were always allies with Oceania, wasn’t that the true history? Or was it changed when it became more beneficial to the BIG$ for the history to be rewritten?

Does the true history really matter if your candidate wins? Does the truth play an important part in the why a candidate gets reelected? If you follow the money all you need do is stop right there. No. Absolutely the truth does not matter. The money does. Voting is about the money. It’s always about the money. Candidates are about your ass pocketbook not your religious affiliation or views. Your positions on Pro Choice or Pro Life change as political winds shift and change even within the same election or with the same candidate. Take Romney. Will you? He is the ultimate changeling. It is about the money. And the smearing of church and state together is, I opine, only to get votes. Reagan was a master when it came to television and the rehearsed line that made good old boy voters feel good. And those votes are bought and paid for by the money trying to influence election outcomes.

Don’t forget the Tea Party demonstrations in Washington, D.C. that Fox Propaganda Channel and the Koch Brothers of Wichita, KS and the world all sponsored. If you are still trying to figger out just what the grass roots Tea Party is about, just ask one of them with a roving microphone on the streets. They get memory lapse. Their history comprehension is zero. All they know is they are just plain folks bought and paid for bus tickets in hand to come down to the nation’s capitol and demonstrate against all the stuff the Democrats and Obama stand for, but they can’t be sure if asked any specific questions. Sounds a bit like Sarah Palin, eh? Déjà vu, all over again. Those D.C. Tea Partiers had a great time in D.C. hotels, what with bus fare and hotel fare paid for by the Koch Bros., known ultra-conservative, right-wing nut cases deluxe.

When the Tea Bag Convention was held in Nashville, here come the busses, the airplanes, and all the no-nothing Billy Bobs and girlfriends and wives to support and cheer for Sarah Palin who gave the keynote speech at the convention. All paid for by the Koch Bros., thank you very much, but hey what do you all stand for? We know you are for cutting government spending on welfare programs just as long as the government does the right thing. Like one of their signs on a stick said, “Keep your hands off my Social Security.” Looks like the Tea Baggers are in for a surprise when the Koch’s tell them that the true purpose of the Tea Baggers, in cutting spending, is to blow up Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all Welfare, so the Koch’s and the rich can have the government and its tax dollars for themselves. But don’t tell anybody. Let the Tea Baggers continue to blast Obama for wanting to kill old people instead of paying for their terminal illnesses with Medicare and Medicaid. One of their signs said, “Don’t Kill Grandma. No Youth in Asia.” Shouldn’t the Koch’s and their handlers hire an editor like for their stupid signs? Or does it really not matter?

Ask the next Tea Bagger you meet if cutting spending means cutting the billions of dollars in the Pentagon Budget as well as in social programs. It will get damn silent all of a sudden I would bet. Nope, their rehearsed talking points don’t include the military, you know, the government entity that spends the most on sophisticated weapons and systems, like the stuff the Military Industrial Complex gets no-bid contracts to build billion-dollar airplanes and $500 toilet seats. They nor Hannity, nor Limbaugh will be caught talking about their big-money sponsors when it comes to cutting government spending.

It is about the money, and all else is smoke and mirrors. And you really don’t have to say anything intelligent to get Billy Bob to go along. Just wrap the cause in the flag and pray for our country, amen.

All further dialogue, if well presented, is about which candidate can help you earn the most money by pursuing real measures to increase jobs, decrease taxes, increase human services, and be all things to all the voters. Impossible, you say? Not at all. The $15 Trillion National Debt is proof that real money is an oxymoron. But here in the good old USA you can crank up the presses and just print more. Printing more money is the Fed’s number one job. This funny money that dilutes the worth of the Treasury, the US economy, jobs, decimates a good standard of living and a respectable currency are all the rewards promises made by candidates and both parties to keep the plates spinning on sticks. It is the grand illusion that perpetuates the belief that a dollar bill is just as good as it always was and still spends just as good. And you don’t have to tell the truth to get there.

Maybe Congress should pass a law making it unconstitutional to print more money. Think they would? Ha! See when the voters elect a candidate whom they expect to be honest and to serve the best interest of the people he represents, borrowing money (Trillions in the case of the federal government) to insure his success in keeping his promises is cheating. Anybody can produce illusions of prosperity with an unlimited source of hard cash with which to act the part of the Wizard of Oz. Without the smoke and mirrors, though, Toto proved the Wizard was a fake simply by pulling back the curtain.

Okay, so much for prologue.

All tags such as patriotism, a belief in God (Judeo-Christian preferred, to be politically correct nowadays), prayer in school, you know the drill, are mere props with which to pole vault over the election booth high bar to win elections. And you vote according to who will help you make and keep the most money in your lifetime. All else seems to be a huge crock. Jerry Falwell was a means to an end to Reagan. Despite all his high-toned words about the Bible and his hit lists he proclaimed to be in the best interest of the Almighty, if the Democrat bugger candidates were all expunged and replaced with God-fearing Republicans. Made you sick to your moral conscience.

Over the years I have enjoyed watching voters who thought that candidates like Reagan would best serve the people of America. He appealed to the masses, the common working people, and he did a fine job of convincing Billy Bob from Cut-And-Shoot, Texas to vote for him. So what did Billy Bob get out of it? Well, see, Billy Bob was a welder’s helper who had a pretty good union job until Reagan proved unions were dispensable by firing all the Air Traffic Controllers. It trickled on down and finally Billy Bob found himself in a quandary when he got replaced by a cheaper-wage illegal, fresh up from the border. No unions necessary no more got Billy Bob a South East Texas pink slip, and when he found a job later, he had to compete with the cheaper labor available. So Billy Bob had to let his air boat go back to the credit union, no more alligator night hunts to supplement no income. And that refinery job he was hopin’ to get thanks to his sister’s brother Buford just up and vanished along with that $18 an hour and lots of overtime.

A few weeks ago I met a bunch of these Billy Bobs at a party across the lake. It became known real quick that they hated Obama, and I questioned them as to why. In Part II I will tell you all about it and how and why hatred for a candidate can build to the boiling point, but nobody can really put their finger on why, even now.